Pressed Sugar Cookies Recipe

SomethingSwanky is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.

Soft and buttery sugar cookies with a smooth and creamy icing on top.

Soft and buttery sugar cookies with a smooth and creamy icing on top.

I guess this isn’t your typical healthy New Year’s type recipe. But I can’t say this is much of a typical healthy New Year’s type of blog either.

In fact, these sugar cookies are anything but typical.

Instead of a poofy, pillowy, cloud-like sugar cookie– this one gets smashed down. Twice. But don’t worry though, it’s still a soft sugar cookie cookie! Also: the goal is cracked edges. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s important.

Soft and buttery sugar cookies with a smooth and creamy icing on top.

The icing is pretty phenomenal too. In fact, it’s my favorite part of this recipe. What makes it so different? In my opinion, it’s the sour cream. Yes. Sour cream. In frosting.  Honestly, the sour cream just takes it to a whole new level. It’s super creamy.

And I love that it doesn’t taste like butter. Do you know what I’m talking about or is it just me? Sometimes I feel like the butter taste in frosting is just way to strong, and it grosses me out. But the sour cream balances out the butter in this case and maybe gives it just a tiny bit of tang.

Soft and buttery sugar cookies with a smooth and creamy icing on top.

This recipe turned out to to be incredibly simple to make and yields a pretty big batch. I got a little over 3 dozen out of this recipe.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

This is the perfect sugar cookie! Soft and sweet with a creamy frosting on top.

Pressed Sugar Cookies

Yield: 3 dozen

Soft and buttery sugar cookies with a smooth and creamy icing on top.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • ¾ cup vegetable Oil
  • 1¼ cup sugar (plus extra for coating)
  • ¾ cup powdered sugar
  • 2 tbsp Water
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp cream of tartar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 5 cups all purpose flour

Frosting:

  • ½ cup butter, softened
  • ¾ cup sour cream
  • 5 cups powdered Sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • a few drops of red food coloring

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Using a stand mixer, beat the butter, oil, sugar, powdered sugar, and water until smooth. Mix in the eggs one at a time.

Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and mix until dough forms.

Scoop two tablespoons of dough per cookie and roll into a ball. Place the dough about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Use a glass to press down on one of the dough balls. Then press the bottom of the glass into a bowl of sugar. Press the sugar coated glass bottom to the flattened cookie.

Repeat* with all of the remaining cookies.

Bake for 8 minutes. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack immediately after removing from the oven to stop the baking process and keep the cookies soft.

Make the frosting:

  1.  Whisk together the butter and the sour cream until as smooth as possible.
  2. Mix in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in the salt.
  3. Mix in the food coloring until you reach your desired hue of pink.
  4. Spoon about a tablespoon of frosting onto each cookie and spread with the back of the spoon. If storing the cookies, allow the frosting to set overnight.

Notes

You don't have to press the cookie first for the rest of the dough balls, since the bottom of the glass is now tacky enough to hold on to the sugar.

Soft and buttery sugar cookies with a smooth and creamy icing on top.
Skip to Recipe